One thing about Bergman I love is his use of imagery to tell his story. One image, in this case Death playing chess with his next victim tells the entire story. Method actors like Marlon Brando use a similar image as an action to tell their characters story. To me as a viewer, Bergman is better viewed with no sound in my opinion. I let his imaginative and creative images tell me his innermost story. Ingmar would have been a great silent film director had he been born a few decades before. Ingmar was beginning his conquest of the cinematic imagery to tell his story, which reached its zenith in Persona (1960).

The scene below is Iconic in its own right. Death playing chess with his quarry is magnetic. Death says he has been following Max for quite some time and now is ready to take him. Max has other plans and challenges Death to a duel of sorts only a noble Knight could dream up. Bergman pointedly asks throughout the film where God is in all this mayhem and destruction we live through. One thing everyone seems to miss in talking about the film is that the knight actually wins by losing the chess match to distract Death, so the young couple with child can escape. The knight knows he has been cheated by death, so he himself deceives death to save others. A noble act that Bergman suggests the knight had to do, because God wasn't interested or willing to help the young couple with child.